


The Gentle Wolf

by Tapeworrm



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Angst and Porn, Begging, Clothed Sex, Come Eating, Dirty Talk, Dominance, Dry Humping, Fitzjames is being driven insane by his desire like a wanna be heathcliffe, Gentle Dom, Hand Jobs, Hand Kink, Harry being a frightened little lamb, James being a big bad wolf, M/M, Oh and Also, Period Typical Attitudes, Porn with Feelings, Praise Kink, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Submission, Two ravenous men just devouring each other with no connotations to cannibalism WHATSOEVER, Voice Kink, absolute abuse of how many prey predator metaphors i use, goodsir being anxious and overthinking everything, i shall sit here consumed by lust for the rest of the evening type narrative, i spent way too long on this and now you have 8k of pure smut in ch3, sensual dom, stanley is there briefly, ye olde thinking this scary man hates you but suddenly he appears in your room and ravishes you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:34:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29365575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tapeworrm/pseuds/Tapeworrm
Summary: He lifted his eyes just in time to catch Fitzjames’ face seem to rework itself away from worry and pity, where it had fallen to again. Harry watched as he expertly crafted that familiar, commandeering expression as though he had plucked it straight from all the portraits of great navy men. There seemed to be a strange hypnotism his face encouraged, or at least Harry told himself that’s why he was watching it all too closely, drawn in by every movement.“Well, I’m certain, Mr. Goodsir, that you will have something for sleep regardless, yes?” his voice had turned warm and inviting and Harry watched, almost in a sort of awed horror, as his eyes softened into a smile.....Harry Goodsir is a nervous man at the best of times, but his little brush with Commander Fitzjames has left him on edge in an entirely alien way. A mini slow burn of emotions and another chaste encounter culminates in a booming confrontation. Will the lamb lay down with the wolf?
Relationships: James Fitzjames/Harry D. S. Goodsir
Comments: 10
Kudos: 13
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	1. Ensnared

**Author's Note:**

> This was another fic for the terror rare pair 2021 collection!  
> This was under the prompt: 'You astonish me..."
> 
> in other words, 'how many wolf an lamb metaphors can I squeeze into 18k words'???  
> (And yes i did reference Angela Carter for the last line of chapter 3.)

Harry hadn’t even released he had fallen asleep at his desk in the medical bay. He had no recollection of that at all. All he recalled was sitting down, after bustling Dr. Stanley out the room _insisting_ that he could cover this shift and that Stanley could go and rest. The man didn’t need much convincing, his despair only an act. Harry remembered sitting down, and then checking his pocket watch – it was roughly a quarter past two in the morning – and then he must have fallen asleep. He only knew this because he was woken up by a soft, gentle touch on his arm. Warm and comforting. Fleeting. It was the bolt of terror that ran through him which woke him, as if that gentle touch had given him a physical shock.

Harry sprang up in his chair, whirling around, his curls falling over his eyes, his face hot. “I’m sorry I-” he began but the words died in his throat. His eyes cleared, face growing impossibly hotter as he came to tumbling realisation that he found himself looking stupidly up at Commander Fitzjames.

Both men seemed frozen in their places for a while. There was an unspoken struggle as to whether they would acknowledge that Harry had been sleeping. The threat of humiliation hanging in the air.

“Commander…” Goodsir struggled to his feet, sweating, smoothing his shaking hands down the front of his frock coat, and sweeping his hair from his eyes diligently. _Be presentable Harry, don’t panic Harry, you can fix this just carry on as normal Harry_. Where he had expected to see a picture of dissatisfaction on the Commander’s face, one that said, ‘this displeases me, Goodsir, this isn’t how we run things here,’ he instead found quite the opposite. A strangely softened look resided there, one Harry was sure to be a mixture of worry and surprise. It reminded him of the pitying glances he would often get at dinner parties or at medical school from head surgeons whenever he struggled with particularly difficult techniques. Yes, he would have preferred the displeased look.

That softness glimmered, faltered, then disappeared. A struggle, it warred upon his face. Harry found it strange, but he couldn’t place why. Supressing facial emotions wasn’t something that came naturally to Harry, if he had one fault it was that his face tended to be completely unguarded, so to observe the Commander’s battle, like he was reattaching a mask, unnerved him a little. It frightened him, a little. _Were there such secrets underneath everyone’s faces?_

It only occurred now that Harry had not directly conversed with the Commander more than a handful of times, all of them very perfunctory. He had never had the opportunity to look at his face longer than was necessary before, to observe his expressions so closely. And now here he was, stood before him, warm in his fisherman’s jumper and waistcoat, hair ever so slightly-astray over his forehead and struggling with an expression of shocking openness. A man, that to Harry hadn’t strictly been a man before, rather he was always simply like a sculpture of one. You viewed it from afar and admired it, but ultimately you know it was specifically designed to evoke such admiration. But now up close he was strikingly human, strikingly _real._ And looking down at him with a face that so clearly wasn’t marble, but soft and heated and, yes, _embarrassed_ at this whole situation. Harry felt his neck and ears flush. What a fool he must look.

“Commander, was there something you needed?” He broke the silence, casting his eyes down sheepishly. He found himself unable to keep looking at him. Unable to quite swallow the growing realisation that he was stood there, human above all else. Not in his epaulets or his hat, not in his coat with the golden buttons; stripped and bare and… _just a man._

Fitzjames cleared his throat hastily, Harry felt his eyes still on him. He was suddenly scared that if he looked up at them that he would be turned to stone, so he didn’t look.

“Well, I couldn’t sleep.” He admitted, his voice achingly soft, “and I was wondering if Dr. Stanley had anything to sort that but then I found you here and…” he trailed off, absent-minded. The threat of humiliation hanging in the air.

 _Yes, you found me here asleep, and my lord look at you, it’s upset you hasn’t it? You are here struggling with sleep and yet here I am, boasting it._ Harry felt small and silly under his intense gaze, wringing his hands stupidly, silent. _My god you didn’t even expect to see me here did you? You wanted Stanley, OF COURSE you wanted an officer. But no, it’s me. I can’t even look you in the face, Commander, but oh please sit down and trust me to cure you of your ailments._ He felt pathetic. Like one of his microscopic marine life, being stared down at through a lens, trapped and alien.

He lifted his eyes just in time to catch Fitzjames’ face seem to rework itself away from worry and pity, where it had fallen to again. Harry watched as he expertly crafted that familiar, commandeering expression as though he had plucked it straight from all the portraits of great navy men. There seemed to be a strange hypnotism his face encouraged, or at least Harry told himself that’s why he was watching it all too closely, drawn in by every movement.

“Well, I’m certain, Mr. Goodsir, that you will have something for sleep regardless, yes?” his voice had turned warm and inviting and Harry watched, almost in a sort of awed horror, as his eyes softened into a smile.

He looked away again, feeling undeserving. Feeling a little shaken to be perfectly honest. The subject of sleep addressed so blatantly while still ignoring that Harry had just been awoken, it felt like a joke. But there was something about the way Fitzjames smiled broader and moved to perch upon the examining bench idly which swept away the dark clouds of humiliation and doubt. A bright, warm light filled Harry instead and he felt himself smiling back at this man, unable to stop it from happening. There was something so gentle and forgiving in him that it was nearly unbearable to Harry, who felt persistently ridiculous at the best of times. Something about this sudden warmth that maybe Harry knew was just another costume and mask for the Commander, but he was sucked into it all the same. If this was theatre then, please, let it play out; let it be real for the moment.

He gathered himself, “yes, of course Commander, the apothecary is open!” he managed a small chuckle and he hoped it was convincing. He felt rather than saw the Commander continue to smile at him for it. Genuine or not, he couldn’t say.

Harry moved to the end of his desk, turned his back slightly to the Commander. His medical chest stared blankly up at him, shut and all put away, but promising good things, nevertheless.

There was a silence as he tried to maneuverer the catches with his shaking fingers.

Why was he shaking? It was as though he was feverous. Fingers sweating, itching, his body growing hot under the tension. The panic. His body was betraying him. All the while there sat the Commander, perfect and honorary, behind him. Maybe he was watching him with that same smile on his face, maybe filing this away in a mental rolodex of ‘reasons why Mr. Goodsir isn’t a chief surgeon’ or ‘Things to laugh about in the Officer’s Mess later’. Oh, the disgust Harry felt with himself, deep within himself, as he watched his own usually very precise hands fumble as though they were not his own. The threat of humiliation returned, but now came crashing down upon Harry in huge dark purple clouds, dizzying. His head suddenly felt dry and sick. Oh, the shame. He was freezing up, his hands coming to clench the sides of the box, sweating and shaking tremors up his tensed arms.

“Here, let me.”

All too suddenly there came a warmth from behind him, softening him. The voice was smooth and sweet. For a fraction of a second Harry felt a hand on his right shoulder gently, oh ever so gently, maneuverer him to the left and out of the way of the chest. It seemed to knock all the air out of him. He seemed to still be able to feel the contact area tingling strangely, passing up his arms and across his shoulders fiercely as though burning. Harry swayed, suddenly very exhaustingly dizzy, but steadied himself with a hand slippery from sweat on the back of his chair.

Commander Fitzjames had carefully moved in beside him, intently taking charge of the box, setting about it with a calm vigour. A much taller man than Goodsir had first noticed.

Harry felt strange as he watched his medicine chest, a personal item which he knew intimately, be carefully and precisely opened by the lean, gentle hands of Commander Fitzjames. His deft, strong fingers breeched the contents and plucked the bottles and powders from within so effortlessly, as though they had been his for the taking all along.

“This is a beautiful little thing, is it not, Mr. Goodsir?” he remarked, uttered softly and Harry nearly flinched at the proximity of his voice to him. Something about it feeling sacrilegious, like a private prayer overheard from passing by a confessional booth. Fitzjames did not look up from where he was mesmerised by the chest’s contents, his dark hair fell over his face slightly as he leant over it. Worked it open. Poured over it with intense interest. Harry felt like he was outside of his own body, floating and delicate as he watched almost terrified.

“It’s almost a part of me” Harry croaked stupidly and breathed a little pointless laugh, “A friend I suppose” his voice melted into the room. He shrugged. Should he even be talking? Hadn’t he proved himself pathetic enough already?

It was dawning on him with slow horror that he seemed _unable_ to stop watching Fitzjames as he examined the contents with his hands. Frozen, entranced, and shyly fascinated by the way he seemed to savour the texture of the smooth wooden insides carefully with the pads of his fingers, ever so gentle so as not to upset any of the small pieces. He opened each compartment with steadiness and ease, his long fingers were precise and delicate and there was a desire in them to caress and soothe the peeled linings, dog-eared labels, and intricate tools.

A private item Harry knew so well, inside and out, suddenly looked so new and inviting in Fitzjames’ large hands, and so fragile and beautiful at the same time; so easily laid bare to him in a no time at all.

His eyes grew impossibly big as he watched, unable to stop as though his mind and body had ceased working apart from to look. To watch, horrified, humiliated, and yet enraptured.

“A friend?” Fitzjames laughed mirthfully, a truly silken sound from deep within his chest, and glanced at Harry through his hair. His eyes were soft and dark, reflecting the warm glow of the lanterns around. Goodsir nodded dumbly, smiling and a little sheepish again, taken aback. Continuing to feel smaller and smaller in this man’s presence. Continuing to feel strange. A microscopic, foreign cell trapped within a glass slide. On display. He could feel the tendons in his neck creak, everything in his being telling him to look away from this man, and yet he simply could not. A deer in the lanterns of an oncoming train.

“Well,” the Commander drew his face closer to the chest, squinting as he read the little labels, and Harry could nearly feel the hot air he was blowing onto it and it made his spine prickle uncomfortably, “please introduce me to this _friend_ , and ask him if he has anything to help me sleep.” He chuckled and straightened up again, moving back from the box. A small, organised movement and the ordeal was done.

The chest now lay open, handled, and discovered on the desk. Inanimate yet, to Harry, personified by the attention it had just received from the Commander. He found himself looking at it and seeing a helpless and tenderly exposed thing. A part of himself so easily laid open. A shameful mirror of his own vulnerability.

Unsteady on his feet, he moved to the chest where it lay flayed. There was a moment where he felt Fitzjames’ dark, interested eyes upon him, curious to his next actions.

“Well, Commander” he turned his back on the box, it was a little difficult to look at, and faced Fitzjames fully. The Commander had retaken his position of leaning, rather than sitting, against the examination bench. The lantern above threw wild shadows across his pointed face, leaving a wolfish orange glint in his eyes.

“I can offer you a few drops of laudanum” Harry tried to smile but it was swallowed within the intense gaze of the Commander; his whole being began to feel a little consumed in his presence, in that stare, “or perhaps you would prefer something a bit more herbal?”

“Whatever works, Mr. Goodsir” Fitzjames rasped, the strength of his watch never leaving Harry’s face. Despite his better judgement Harry was suddenly reminded of the fairy-tales about wolves who looked like men and how they devoured the weak and gullible. He felt a small pang of something akin to fear in his bowels, hot and loose. Minute and gone as soon as it arrived, but it still left a deep tissue feeling of something crawling over his back.

“I just want to sleep” the Commander added, his shadowy face tilting carefully, as though somehow, he was privy to Harry’s inner turmoil. That would be a demeaning thing if he was, to know Harry was privately quivering like a lamb before a wolf. What a ridiculous thing to think.

The Commander seemed to struggle with his face again and decided to look away from Harry, casting his eyes about the room instead and crossing his legs at the ankles casually.

Laudanum it will be then. An ingenious mix of spirits and opium, guaranteed to knock someone out if they so chose it to, or to give pain relief, or bowel relief, or practically any bodily or mental relief, including creative inspiration according to the great poets Goodsir had read about. A cure-all. Cheaper than alcohol and by far much more affective for its purposes. Bought from any pharmacy, grocery store and confectionary stand, which made Harry’s job very easy as many people self-medicated with it. One just had to use the correct amount of course.

He turned around to his chest and plucked out the tincture of clear liquid from a neatly hidden and locked compartment, which he accessed with a small delicate key from his desk draw. This area was untouched, undiscovered, and Harry felt a small flicker of delight at keeping it secret. He turned around to hold the bottle up to the light, in front of Fitzjames’ face, to observe its contents.

“I shall need to restock on this it seems” he remarked almost dreamily to himself, and worry set his brow. The only bad thing about it being such a cure-all remedy is that he found himself using it on more and more of the men each day as they complained of headaches and toothaches in worrying numbers, it didn’t help that these tinctures came from his own personal stash that he bought with him for the voyage. By now he only had maybe one tincture of laudanum left. Still, that didn’t matter, it wasn’t to be used flippantly anyway. _You’re lucky to have it all, Harry,_ he thought. The only provided medicines his chest came equipped with were for basic treatments, including scurvy and venereal disease, but nothing for unconsciousness, unless you counted drink. Personalising his chest from his own-bought stores of supplies just made it all twice the more precious to him.

His eyes met with Fitzjames’ as he lowered the bottle and found him pensively glancing between the tincture and Goodsir with a ghost of a worry across his shadowy face. The mask was gone again it seemed. This let Harry feel more at ease for now, finally in a situation he was familiar with: a nervous patient.

It was only now that Harry had a real opportunity to truly look at the man in front of him, and he took it almost greedily despite himself. A true commandeering officer, tall and unwavering, broad of shoulder and heavy, a man who demanded the respect and subordination of many men. And yet, there was softness here that Goodsir noted without really thinking about it, the delicacy of his clothing and the way it was so well cared for, the intricate fit of his waistcoat, the polish and care taken of his boots. He was imposing yes, but also warmly so, without menace. Every detail of his outward appearance had been accounted for and practiced as though he was simply a painting identifiable by his clothing and hair alone, painstakingly crafted to give an impression of a man, built by hand to be such in the most graceful way possible. The only way to penetrate this ornate disguise was through the way his eyebrows furrowed or his deep dark eyes watched thoughtfully, machinations of a mind Goodsir knew nothing about working within. A _man_ Harry truly knew nothing about below the surface.

“Is this an observational examination, Mr Goodsir?” there was a warmth richness in his voice and perhaps a fleeting pull of a smile upon his lips. Despite the pretty display of joviality, Harry felt that stab of foolishness again in full to realise he had indeed been stood silently casting his eyes over the commander for longer than was just cursory. He felt his face flush with heat, and he decided to laugh about it, a musical sound which creased his face and glittered in his eyes. It was performative gesture on his part. One born out of fear mainly, out of that familiar threat of humiliation once again. Cover it up, cover it up, like curtains pulled across the portrait paintings of the dead and disgraced. _Shroud it, conceal it, bury it Harry._

“Forgive me, Commander” he chimed, taking a gentle but ever so calculated step towards him, “I was truly somewhere else.”

The commander, swathed in shadow still, said nothing to disprove of this but simply let out a low laugh of his own. Soft and quiet in his mouth, short. This sound was more in response to Harry’s own laugh than it was a dismissal of his excuses. During it, his shadowy eyes had never left Harry’s face. They twinkled darkly. If all sculptures looked like that, Harry would certainly never visit a gallery for as long as he lived. Yes, this was proving ever still to be a man. Maybe carefully modelled on a painting of one, but certainly lacking the placative flatness in expression.

Harry had been holding the laudanum to his chest guardedly, and he now felt brave enough to take another careful step closer. Even closer still. So close to him now, the shadows fell softer over Fitzjames’ face. He knew that his own face probably looked shamedly open as he cautiously puzzled up at him, watching what his expression was saying to him. Was he too close? Was he over the mark? Was this going to work? Harry are you off the hook yet? Harry, does this man want to swallow you whole like in all the fairy-tales?

Both men were very still, barely breathing truly, but Harry didn’t register this. How could he register this when he came to realise, with a cold flash of panic, that he was the recipient to a look of deep warmth. Fitzjames’ face was not in fact wolfish or marble-like at all. Bathed in orange lamplight, which cast amber brown shadows across him, he wore a perfect expression of softness and patience right up to into the glimmering darkness of his eyes. Harry wasn’t sure if he felt an elation in his chest, as it was immeasurable and gone as soon as it arrived. It was replaced with sheer guilt and anxiety, rattling through his very bones. He floundered under this gaze, he didn’t truly know what to do now. That alien feeling creeping back upon him. Once again, under a microscope, painfully exposed.

He felt the Laudanum clenched in his fist again and he managed to come back to himself, swallowing thickly and dryly, looking down at his hands. Looking down to examine the tincture with amazingly fabricated interest.

“Is there anything else I can help you with before I administer this, sir?” His voice was measured. _Professionalism Harry, remember that? Whatever is happening to you can wait until your job is done with; forget it, bury it Harry._

“No, I just require sleep.” This was said carefully, gently, and the commander continued to smile warmly and regard Harry, ever so slowly. He thought that this gaze was much the same way the Commander would perhaps watch a small and interesting animal. Something new and unlike himself to look upon, something which he maybe didn’t fully understand but found amusing or charming. Or maybe, this was the way you watched something which you actually understood _all too well_. The way you would watch a person right before they took a bite of sumptuous fruit that you knew the flavour of, eager for their experience, anticipating it. Yes, this was a closely watchful look and Harry sweltered under it. Didn’t understand it. Was coming to fear how it made him feel dissected, like the way his medical chest had been.

If Harry had been looking up at him, he would have noticed how the Commander’s eyes drifted over him in his entirety with this same, slow, observant gaze. But perhaps it was the fact that Harry wasn’t looking which allowed Fitzjames do this.

The penetration of the gaze was overwhelming to Harry, regardless of how indirect it was. It made him feel dizzy and faint, he felt discovered like a rabbit in his hidey-hole who had just come face-to-face with the fox who tunnelled in after him. Vulnerable. No escape. It was worse that it was such a warm and soft gaze, one decorated with a smile. He would have preferred wolfish. He would have taken marble. He couldn’t handle whatever this was.

Rather than deal with it, he busied himself about the room with the correct appliances for mixing 5 minims of Laudanum with a little of the spirit the surgeons kept in the bay. There was silence as he worked, that skin-crawling sensation returning to him now that his back was facing the Commander again. He knew he was still watching him. He felt a little relieved to be doing his job, the pressure of being observed so closely lessening. At least he wasn’t shaking anymore, now he knew he wasn’t going to be eaten. Perhaps.

“Tell me why Dr. Stanley isn’t on his usual call hours tonight?”

It sounded to Goodsir that this was said to break the silence more than anything, and strangely like a child asking for a bedtime story. He focused intently down on his work.

“I couldn’t sleep.” He felt stupid of course, had he not just been asleep when the Commander found him? Ridiculous. But it wasn’t a lie, and that’s partly why he fell asleep on his shift wasn’t it?

“So here I am instead. I took over for him tonight.” His voice sounded incredibly sobering to his own ears. His hands were steady, and everything was falling perfectly back into place. He could nearly ignore the constant dryness in his throat, the weakness in his legs as though he could drop to the floor at any moment. The feeling of supreme inferiority. The feeling of being trapped and observed and not matching up to expectations. Not deserving of such a man’s presence or questions. A man who so, so clearly preferred the company of Dr. Stanley.

“Right.” He heard Fitzjames drum his fingers on the table absently, “Well that makes two of us then, I suppose” he laughed genuinely and almost shyly. Goodsir was glad he didn’t see it because it felt far too vulnerable a thing to witness. It made his stomach lurch, it made him feel guilty. That feeling of walking past a drawing room and hearing hushed tones about yourself. A sound never intended for your ears, heard accidently. He banished thoughts which presented him Commander Fitzjames sat elegantly in some bright drawing room laughing like he just had with an entourage of people. People much more important to him than Harry.

“Indeed.” He agreed as warmly as he could and turned back to Fitzjames with the solution of laudanum and spirit in a little tin cup. It looked exceptionally poor and ugly to befit the grace of the man before him, “Here we are, Commander,” he met his eyes, “please take this, it should put you to sleep fairly quick.”

The men looked at each other for a while, Harry’s hand holding the cup closed the distance between them and it shook minutely where it hung in the air. There was a strange hesitation upon Fitzjames’ face as he regarded the cup,

“how much did you put in?” he asked without looking from it. Goodsir imagined that, moving with the high-class circles as he did, the Commander was open to hearing much about the many who abused and became enslaved by Laudanum,

“Please,” he took a step closer again, he hoped his face was the picture of comfort and reassurance, “I have used the physician recommended dose” he nodded encouragingly, “you will be fine, trust me.”

It felt appalling to Harry to utter the words ‘trust me’ when he was the one feeling like a lamb in the lair of the wolf.

Closer now, his hand holding the cup barely whispered against the smooth, expensive material of Fitzjames’ waistcoat. He nearly pulled his whole arm back, as though horribly burned by this, but resolved to remain still and careful. _Hold your breath Harry and he won’t eat you. He won’t smell how afraid you are._

Harry looked up into his face plainly, assuring. He hoped the Commander didn’t see how awe-struck he felt to be so close to such a man, close enough to see the individual hairs falling over his head. Damn seeing the painting from a distance, he had practically clambered over the railings and was face-to-face with it. If he was turned to stone by looking into this face, then so be it, but make it quick. Make it happen before it noticed how much he was shaking.

There was a short silence between them where Fitzjames held his eyes. His own, dark and seemingly endless.

“Of course, Doctor” he said at last, and before Harry could insist that he _wasn’t_ a doctor really, he plucked the cup from Goodsir with ease. His hand now feeling rather empty and useless, hovered where it had been.

Harry watched with that same helplessly awe-stricken horror as before as, without hesitation, Fitzjames bought the cup to his lips where he knocked back his head and swallowed in a fluid and satisfying motion, made a low, pleased noise from the bottom of his throat, and returned to look at Harry, eyes sparkling brightly. So graceful and so contented did he look that Goodsir couldn’t stop from gazing in wonder, perhaps a little dumbly. So close to him he could still smell the spirit coming off his breath. He had barely registered the cup being placed back in his hovering hand once again.

“By lord, that taste is a little sharp!” Fitzjames croaked with a sumptuous laugh, which rumbled through his alcohol-scratched throat resulting in a rather husky but alluring sound.

The noise broke Harry from his trance, he returned to himself with the weight of it. Again, realising that he had become drawn in and trapped by this man, so charismatic was he. _Remember those fairy-tales Harry?_ About the wolf who disguised as a man, he tricked those around him and enchanted them, enticed them into his arms, and there he transformed and ate them. Swallowed them whole, in one fluid and satisfying motion. Harry took a step backwards again, cup in two hands now.

“Yes, I’m afraid not many will vouch for the taste,” he tried to laugh, “but it does do the trick.” Further away from him, he managed to breathe a bit better. Collect himself again. He smiled up at the Commander, feeling like a job well done.

The commander was nodding in agreement to this statement, clearing his throat again. He shifted his weight off the bench on long legs and ran a hand through his hair, effortlessly arranging it. He then straightened out his waistcoat, although Harry thought it still looked immaculate. Although he probably would have thought any high-standing officer would have looked immaculate to him in this circumstance.

“Thank you, Goodsir” He said at last, that dark and twinkling gaze returned to Harry, peering at him through shadows once again, renewing that strange crawling on Harry’s skin. That microscope feeling. That rabbit in a hidey-hole feeling. The lamb in a wolf’s den feeling. ( _In one fluid and satisfying motion.)_

“Absolutely, Commander” he smiled warmly back, clutching the cup firmer “Sleep well” he added.

“I think I shall.” He offered, “Well done.” Soft and gentle. Harry found himself smile at the praise, a subordinate tick of his.

Their eyes met again as if there was more to say. Harry still felt a little dumbfounded. A little small. Fitzjames cast those dark, warm eyes across Goodsir as a whole, imitating a cursory glance perfectly. Harry didn’t notice any difference. He then performed another friendly smile and headed for the door.

“Give my greetings to Dr. Stanley when you see him” he echoed from the shadows, his deep voice hitting the wooden walls. Harry nodded and watched as the man disappeared gracefully, like a magic trick. Then he was alone again.

There was an unshakable feeling that room felt a little colder and emptier without him. But Harry assumed that it would feel colder and emptier without any other person but himself.

He finally sat down again, only then realising he was still shaken, as though his very bones were stirring within him. Despite all his nervousness, and his humiliation, and his dreadful sweatiness, Harry thought that he had done a very good job of dealing with such a man of status for the first time. After all, the two men hadn’t before exchanged full sentences, and now he had hopefully helped the Commander drift off to a very comfortable sleep. He had helped him. He had at least done that. And despite it all, he felt proud of that.

That’s what his job was all about, wasn’t it? And he had done it.

All the sensations and emotions he had struggled with, well, he would choose to bury them. _Don’t worry about all that Harry, you were nervous._ Every man gets nervous. Surely. Especially with such a man. A man who you thought was but a symbol, of course you would be nervous to have him suddenly in the room with you. Yes, that’s all it was. Foolish, childish, ridiculous nerves. _Pull yourself together Harry._

He smoothed his shaking, sweating hands over the tops of his trembling thighs neatly, exhaling slowly. _A job well done, Harry. It’s over. Be happy, Harry, be proud._

And he was.

But he was also a little overwhelmed.

Such grace, such gentleness and kindness. Such a perfect portrait of a man, so up close, so _real_. It was difficult to not be a little captivated. Shyly enticed. _Don’t touch the artwork, Harry. Don’t approach the exhibits. Remember the wolf story, Harry._ Machinations of a mind he knew nothing about working beneath.


	2. Hunger Pains

“So, I heard word that you treated Commander Fitzjames last night?”

Goodsir and Dr. Stanley were engaged in the usual afternoon organisation of the medical bay, saved for moments when foot traffic was sparse. Goodsir never failed to notice how this activity - wiping benches, putting away tools, reshuffling records - was always done with only the feigned help of Dr. Stanley. He was leaning against a desk, prodding at a few loose pages to get them in order. It was from this position that he posed this question, sounding a little bemused perhaps, watching Harry as he scuttled about and avoided his eyes.

“Yes.” Harry set about moving the mortar and pestle, he found that once he started adjusting the places of things in the room it wasn’t always easy to stop. “He said he couldn’t sleep.” The mortar and pestle looked sadly up at him from their new position against the wall, very unhappy to have been muddled about.

Stanley blew though his nose in the memory of a laugh, sardonic.

“I heard he asked for me, in fact.” There was a scratch of pride at the back of his throat.

Harry shrugged a little to himself, smoothing his hands over some papers thoughtfully. He chose this moment to lift his gaze to Stanley’s with a polite smile.

“Yes, he did mention that.” He thought it best to soothe the man’s ego. Stanley held his eyes for a moment, nodding sternly and thoughtfully.

“I heard you handled him well enough, without me.” His mouth seemed to twist into a wry smile for reasons unknown to Goodsir. Perhaps he didn’t want to know. He briefly found himself thinking back, the memories still fresh, to how the Commander didn’t seem to be any trouble at all, warm and accommodating in fact. Overnight, he had processed the events much clearer, buried any flickers of humiliation that threatened to take alight. Harry had done a good, swift job he thought. The Commander had been a very pleasant man, that is all. That is everything. Harry ignored the pressing, warm feeling in his stomach at the memory.

“I did my best without you, Sir.” Goodsir’s eyes found Stanley again, he smiled hopefully at the Doctor who regarded him with a curious slow tilt of his head. If this was Stanley’s way of bringing up how the Commander may or may not have found Harry asleep to humiliate him further, he was doing a poor job of it. _Speak plainly Doctor, or don’t speak at all to me_ , Harry felt himself becoming flushed with annoyance.

“Yes, I heard he slept very well indeed,” Stanley’s voice was biting. Goodsir turned his back on him briefly to busy himself with some cups that needed polishing. _Ignore it, Harry, bury it._ “In fact, he apparently wouldn’t stop talking about how professional and helpful you were today.” Goodsir felt himself flush further and fumbled with a cup, nearly dropping it. A silly thing to do. He wasn’t used to praise from Stanley, no matter how soaked with venom it was.

“I did my best.” He echoed. Something in his chest pulled, heavy and hotly. Harry felt as though Dr. Stanley were making fun of him. He wasn’t in the mood.

There was silence. Perhaps Stanley was considering pressing further on the topic, but instead he heaved a sigh and moved away from the desk and undid his strenuously organised pile of papers in the process. _Whose cleaning those up, I wonder._

“Well, good for you Mr. Goodsir” he added abruptly, “having your first exciting brush with high society.” His voice was officious and grating.

If there was a sneer on his face, Goodsir didn’t see it, but he felt it all the same.

Of course, this was all about status for Stanley. The man who was an honorary officer, the man who got to wear epaulets whilst Goodsir didn’t, the man who had worked on Fitzjames’ battlefield wounds, a man who brushed elbows with men like Commander Fitzjames consistently.

A shrinking feeling came over Harry. He poured himself into polishing a singular cup rhythmically, as if the movements would work out the knot that was forming inside his belly. As if, by some means of willpower alone, he was attempting to mop up his very being.

Foolish is what he felt. Foolishness at the feeling of quiet pride he let himself coddle after treating the Commander, at the warmth he felt in his gut just now when thinking of the accomplishment, and most of all he felt ashamed. Yes, that’s the most biting part of it all: he felt ashamed of thinking he could truly fit in with the men around him. The men who closed in on him every day on this ship, the men like Doctor Stanley or even Commander Fitzjames who he knew were not his equals, who were first and foremost _always_ far above his station. ‘ _Hello, nice to meet you, you are below me.’_ Barely human to Harry, only a title shrouded in glittering gold buttons and tassels. The temptation of a glorious golden fruit at the top of a glorious green tree; out of reach no matter how high he strained on his tip-toes.

It burned him further to have to admit to himself that perhaps the Doctor was right. It was his first brush with a society far above him, with a man who seemed foreign to him; a man from a painting. Maybe this alone is why it excited him so. One golden fruit had fallen to the floor and allowed Harry to glimpse it, to look in awe upon it’s shining golden surface; but this was merely accidental. Perhaps if he looked longer at it, it’s golden hue would rot away and show beneath it just any other fruit, marred and imperfect. So, he didn’t look closer. _Feel lucky you got to see it all, Harry, because it won’t happen again. Learn from Icarus, Harry, don’t fly too close to the sun._

His face felt hot and his chest felt constricted and tight, the dark clouds of shame gathering over his spirit.

“I think that cup has had enough, don’t you?” Stanley’s persistently sour voice jolted Harry from his dark clouds (simply parted them, not banished them) from where he had slunk to stand next to him at the worktop, Goodsir didn’t have to look up to know he was looking down at him.

“Yes, maybe.” It was a stupid thing to say, but he said it anyway and put the cup back on the shelf with the others. It was slowly dawning on him that he also felt defeated. Of course, Stanley would seize any opportunity to try and flaunt his officer standing, and his connection to certain higher-ups; it shouldn’t be surprising. In fact, if Goodsir wasn’t himself, he would tolerate getting angry about the way Stanley always seemed to belittle him. But as it stands, any anger he could feel bubbling, white-hot, in his stomach was harboured quietly and buried. Hot coals stifled with sand. The straining smoke from the aftermath instead turning into a suffocating plume of defeat. A fire put out too soon. Dark clouds of shame.

His gaze found Stanley, still stood aside him and busying himself with the logbook importantly. His strong surgeons’ hands thumbed through pages and his forefinger glided over certain words of value. Harry genuinely couldn’t decipher whether he was only pretending to read or not, making a huge show out of it either way. He had to suffocate a jolt of laughter erupting at the prospect. The clouds were parting.

“Anything missing?” He offered politely.

“I don’t know yet, Mr. Goodsir.”

“Of course, my apologies.”

“Hm.”

Harry took some more time to look up at the Doctor’s face, softening despite his previous spell of anger, at how intently Stanley was doing his job: his eyebrows knitted together, and his teeth absently chewed the inside of his cheek in thought. Harry fancied he caught a glimpse of the schoolboy who had first set out to be a medical student all those years ago, a passion not quite concealed regardless of how much effort he took to wear a jaded mask. Perhaps this man wasn’t quite the gilded fruit Goodsir imagined him to be.

“Is there something on my face, Goodsir?” Stanley remarked, not looking up. Nonchalant. Bored.

 _Yes, I think you are experiencing an emotion Doctor Stanley_ , thought Goodsir with a quirk of a smile. Instead, he cleared his throat “no, sir.”

“Mm-hmm” he rumbled and raised an eyebrow down at the book, much like an exasperated father, turning a page. “Perhaps you might want to turn your attention to those powders over there, Goodsir, it’s an awful mess. Unless staring at me like a petulant child is how you intend to clean up, via some sort of bewitchery perhaps?” Stanley shifted his weight onto the heels of his hands on either side of the logbook and leant closer over the pages, still not attempting to look at Goodsir.

Harry felt a smile break out upon his face and turned away from the Doctor towards where the powders sat sloppily on his own desk. No, this fruit definitely wasn’t as high up on the tree as he once thought. Guarded, yes, but not out of reach.

The sweeping, scraping, and arranging of the various powders left strewn across his table worked wonders to take his mind away from those dark clouds. The work itself was always soothing to Harry. No matter the job, be it cleaning supplies or caring for the men, it made him feel at peace. Working with his hands melted away his own turbulence. Times like these he could have cleaned the whole dingy orlop just to continue to pour himself into something that wasn’t his own troubles for a while. Handywork was a fundamental part of his job, his hands eased the people he worked on and by extension they alleviated his soul in return. It was a two-way street. Even arranging these little tinctures and corked bottles together neatly made Harry feel calmer, more complete and himself again.

It wasn’t until he turned his gaze upon his medical chest did that feeling crumble desperately, a bolt of lightning on a clear, sunny day. It looked dirty, tainted. It made him think of drawings of harlots and diagrams of dissected cadavers; both of which shared that vacant look on their face, that startling nakedness. _Don’t be a fool_ he chided himself, _It’s only a box for pity’s sake!_

Except it wasn’t just a box anymore. It was a memory now. Because now, as he looked at it, he couldn’t help but see how easily it was penetrated and exposed by Commander Fitzjames; a part of his own fortress stormed and explored so swiftly and without struggle. Pitiful. Dark clouds of shame. His own hands, his important hands, shook so much that he wasn’t even able to do his job, to handle himself. So helpless he must have looked that the Commander had to swoop in and do it for him, oh god how pathetic! How lowly he must have seemed, how much he proved himself to be inferior. How he had stood and watched with dawning dismay as the Commander’s sleek, expert hands had undone him!

The revulsion rising in Harry dizzied him and he would have staggered if he wasn’t planted to the floor in horror, growing his roots of shame deep into the wood, forced to stare blindly and remember. Heat numbed his face and neck, his hands still on the bottles now frozen, sweating. Oh, the repulsion was far worse than the shame, tormenting and convulsing within him. He couldn’t stop from seeing Fitzjames’ pityingly gentle motions, how he had caressed and smoothed and examined everything so plainly, so overtly; how Goodsir had just watched feebly, feeling strange. Feeling like his very insides were being revealed, as though he had become one of his cadavers upon the dissection bench, defenceless and accessible. There for the taking; helplessly known.

He was the crab-apple at the foot of the glorious green tree that you stomped and picked apart with the toe of your shoe just out of delightful curiosity, to see if this unappealing fruit is just as inadequate on the inside as it is on the outside. Well now at least the Commander knew that he was.

He was suddenly so sick of himself, so revolted, that he nearly gagged. He let lose a small moan of despair deep in his throat, barely audible. Certainly not perceptible to Stanley who ignored him at the best of times. A deep breath. Another one. _Look back to the bottles, Harry, go back to organising_. And so, he did. Even if his hands shook.

Another breath, and another one. Another breath. _Clarity, Harry, be calm._ _These are residual emotions, Harry, just residual shame. The wolf’s not going to eat you anymore, that gilded apple is too far up in the tree. It will never happen again._ Another breath, _steady now, easy there._ Never again. _Oh, you will never again be in the presence of such grace and gentleness._ Never again, not like that. Only from afar, like a sculpture of a man somehow peered at through a mist, over a sea. You wonder, _how did they build a man from marble to be so life-like? How did they paint that man to look so elegant?_ But you don’t question it further. That’s just how he was designed. And you forget about it. _Forget it, Harry._

He tried his best to but now the hot wash of shame and despair was speared by a deep, devastating arrow of pure misery. Icy cold through the bleak heat of his humiliation. There he stood, hot and cold all at once. Turmoil spiralling inside of him, sweating, and shaking, and feeling his face flush with tears. _What’s wrong with me? Does the rejection from a man I barely know upset me THIS much? Get a hold of yourself, Harry._

He needed some air, that was it. He just needed to freshen up. He made his excuses to Dr. Stanley, who gave him his signature ‘just what do you think you’re doing?’ routine but eventually let him go under the vow that he picked up some more supplies on the way back. ‘ _Twenty minutes sharp, Mr. Goodsir or I’ll have your head’,_ thought Harry as he left, clenching, and unclenching his fists shakily.

When he returned, armfuls of various supplies balancing precariously, it was with a clearer head. Everything was fine. He was the _epitome_ of calm. This is what he told himself anyway. He refused to acknowledge the previous 15 minutes of shaking he had just done in his quarters, gritting his teeth and sweating in the gloom of his room, alone. Minutes, feeling like hours, of silence only broken by his jagged breaths and, my god, if the walls had eyes, would they be as repulsed with him as he felt with himself? Doubled over, hands on his knees, and tears falling vertically from his eyes silently, only a soft _tap tap_ onto the wooden boards below. Never blinking, for fear that blinking would acknowledge, _encourage_ , the crying and then he wouldn’t be able to stop; just let the tears fall _tap tap_ like a leak in a roof. His whole body trembling from the imprisonment of his emotions, just breathing, sweating, gritting his teeth, and crying in the dark. Foolish. Shameful. Pathetic.

He juggled with the supplies in his arms now, hoping that he had gotten everything that Stanley needed. If cold sweat still trapped his shirt to his back and under his armpits, he pretended not to notice it. If his legs and arms trembled so much that felt like they didn’t belong to him, then who else would know? Every pulse of his heart thrummed low in his throat, making him feel sick, as he approached the medical bay.

He stopped.

He was but feet away from the medical bay now, but he could hear…voices. Quite discussion from within. Why did that bother him? That was normal. But no, a wave of terror swept over him and he had to freeze, afraid that his knees would buckle underneath him. He heard the voice of Commander Fitzjames talking in hushed, polite tones to Dr. Stanley. Could he turn around and go back? He wanted to suddenly drop everything he had so carefully balanced in his narrow arms and simply flee, that horrific skin crawling sensation engulfing him all at once, making him dizzy. For a nasty, nauseating moment his vision flashed dark as the blood dropped away from his head, Oh god, was he going to faint? _No, pull yourself together Harry. Don’t be silly._ He stifled a moan of despair and his vision cleared _._ The unexpected sounds of his own footsteps whispering across the wood frightened him, and he realised he had made the decision to move forward. His arms and shoulders cramped with tension as he continued to approach, trying not to breathe too loud, trying not to shake too much, trying not to be visible at all. His bowels felt loose and hot and his face was slowly burning hotter and hotter.

“Ah, here is the very fellow now, Sir” Stanley was leant easily against the examination table, facing the door as Goodsir hurriedly appeared, face red and arms full. Fitzjames wasn’t facing him, his tall, broad back impossible to read.

“I think I managed to acquire everything we needed, Dr. Stanley.” His voice sounded small and insignificant. He couldn’t help but stare at the shadow of a man in the room still with his back turned, more of a solid, cold mass than the warm and soft man he had seen last night. And oh, Harry felt his throat close up at it. Something like fear returned to its familiar place in his gut, squirming there with apprehension.

Stanley was watching him carefully over the Commander’s shoulder, with more than a little interest, as he quite obviously struggled to put all the various jars and tinctures down all at once onto the desk. _No, no it’s fine I’ve got it all, thank you sir,_ Harry clenched his jaw, the flicker of it lost among his whiskers.

“Commander Fitzjames was just mentioning you, Mr. Goodsir” Stanley chimed, Harry recognised his ‘officer’ voice immediately, the one he always put on in front of men like the Commander to fit in. It was a voice which glistened with pride and really enforced that ‘us and them’ dynamic. As if Harry wasn’t already well aware of that, staring at the depths of Commander Fitzjames’ navy greatcoat as though it were a starless sky.

“He was saying how well your concoction worked for him.” Stanley finished, flickering his cat-like gaze back to Fitzjames for approval, something which made Harry’s stomach twist violently and he wasn’t sure why.

“Oh” was all he could say, seemingly entranced once again by just the mere presence of the man in the room, his chest flushing uncomfortably hot under his clothes and yet he was still shaking in a layer of cold sweat. A lamb in a wolf’s den again, just standing and waiting for his chance to escape. No longer did Fitzjames look as comforting and gentle as he once thought he was, more than ever he reminded Harry of a marble statue of a man once again: cold and solid and unmoving. Whatever blank visage he had seemingly let slip last night was once again firmly in place, uncanny and strange. Not human. A gilded fruit high in a great green tree, solid gold. Attempt to bite into it and you would break your teeth, filling your mouth with your own hot blood. It took him a moment to admit that he was actually quite frightened of the man.

His throat grew dry as he watched, waiting to see if he would turn to face him. All of a sudden, his fears of rejection were realised as the Commander made no effort to even acknowledge that he was in the same room as him. Oh, he had well and truly crushed this crab-apple beneath one magnificent, polished boot and found absolutely nothing of interest. Nothing to compare to himself. Nothing more left to toy with. And now he had lost interest. Harry thought the directness of his gaze last night was excruciating, but oh no _this_ was much worse. A wolf who had lost interest in the lamb always suggested something wrong with the prey, not the predator. He felt sick. He felt like nothing at all. _Did I want to be eaten?_ A small part of him answered eagerly ‘ _Yes! Oh YES! Because then you would have had a PURPOSE!’_

Conversation had seemingly moved on, without a glance or thought given to Harry in the slightest, leaving him burning up, consuming himself, in the background. Part of the scenery. Of course. Why would it be any different? He found himself watching Stanley’s face, not even hearing the conversation despite the smallness of the room, because blood rushed so high in his ears. The threat of humiliation once again realised. His face grew numb with heat. Stanley was even smiling and nodding to what the Commander was offering, oh he looked so desperate it was laughable. Harry felt his fists clench, sweating but cold. All the blood was in his face. All of a sudden, he wanted to stride over and pull the Commander around to face him, force him to look at him. The thought sent a flash of white-hot panic through him and he buried it immediately, terrified that his body would act on its own. His anger deflated with it. _Shroud it Harry, bury it._ Oh, how foolish he was, how pitiful. No wonder the Commander couldn’t look at him. He was no grander than the tiny creatures he spent so long observing, no more powerful than them. He forced himself to look away, to ignore it. Stunted by his fragility.

He found his desk chair and sat in it, feeling thick and stuffy like his body was full of cotton. He was reminded of the many cadavers he had seen over his training days; their chest cavity’s open wide and organs removed for inspection before all being shoved back in rudely in all the wrong places, a gleaming, rotting pile. His own insides felt cold and jumbled, like his body wasn’t his own. He felt unimportant. He had been opened up by the gleaming knife of Fitzjames’ eyes, vulnerable, and laid uncomfortably empty waiting for parts of himself to be returned. And now that he saw him again, being ignored by him while he was preoccupied with Dr. Standing Officer Stanley, he realised those parts of himself would never return in full, not in the right place, and not as warm as before, icy cold inside his own skin. Oh, what a fool he was.

He was bought back by the sound of the Commander’s low, pleasant laugh, like the one he had experienced last night. His skin crawled over his back. It was chased by Stanley’s own rather strange laugh, as though he had never laughed a day in his life, but he wanted to fit in. That nearly bought the ghost of a smile to Harry’s lips, but any hope of it was suffocated by the awful feeling that he was the butt of a joke. He wasn’t. But the feeling was there. Like hearing laughter erupting from the room you just left. It was only now that he realised with dread that one of the Commander’s hands had come to rest casually on his desk, next to Harry. How long had he been there? When did he move? He couldn’t pull his eyes away, feeling strangely invaded. Feeling hot and tense but bizarrely all at once soothed.

Did he dare risk to look along that arm, towards the face of the man who owned it? He was suddenly stricken with fear that if he did indeed look up, he would find those dark, wolfish eyes glinting down at him. The hairs on the nape of his neck stood erect with a chill. Instead, he continued just to look at the hand, found that somehow easier and less direct. The palm rested easy against the edge of his desk, long fingers curled over the side as the Commander came to lean the back of his thigh against the table and continued talking. Harry could not hear a word he was saying, not directed at him anyway, but he was suddenly so enraptured by this single space between him and the connection of the Commanders hand to the table that it was as though he was in a deep pool, deaf and blind to anything else. He felt his heart thudding in his ears and his whole body seemed to warm peculiarly.

It was as though the wood of his desk warmed under the Commander’s touch, creeping along to where his own hands lay clasped, sweating and shaking. That warmth slowly rising through his arms and into his head, making him feel light and dizzy as he just _stared_ at the intrusive hand. The soothing contact. Oh god, why did it affect him so? It was as if it was touching his own bare, delicate skin rather than the desk, and the very brief image of this left him suddenly without breath, swallowed in a shock of white-hot heat. _Bury it Harry._

The gentle, dulcet tones of the Commander’s voice continued to exchange with Dr. Stanley’s own clipped sort of baritone, but Harry couldn’t hear a word. It felt like the undertones of the Commander’s voice enveloped him in a warmth and comfort, just from its proximity alone and the connection his weight against the desk provided to it. Goodsir couldn’t catch himself as he looked up along that lean arm, across the broad chest and up to observe the Commander’s face. He wasn’t looking at him, caught in conversation with Stanley, but even just seeing that face in daylight made Harry’s stomach squeeze strangely and he clenched his shaking fists, removing them from the desk. Swiftly feeling ashamed to have his hands even on the same surface as this man’s own. He placed them neatly on each thigh, carefully wiping the sweat from them onto his trouser legs.

He was staring now; he knew this but couldn’t seem to stop. Watching Fitzjames as he intently listened to Stanley, watching his face as it moved around his words carefully and considerately, eyebrows pulling down at some points, mouth twisting around a polite grin at others. All at once Harry realised that he was still as hypnotised by this man as he had been last night, it hadn’t worn off, in fact it all came crashing helplessly back twice as strong. His whole face felt slack and hot as he simply looked up at him, like observing a most enticing painting, like looking up and up at the vast towering face of a marble statue, in awe. Foolish and shameful, he felt his neck flush hotly, but he couldn’t look away. Was he being entranced by this man? Mesmerised? _Remember the wolf story, Harry, he entices and then he transforms, and then he swallows you whole_. _One fluid and satisfying motion._ But maybe he wanted to be devoured by this man. The thought made his breath catch quietly and still his eyes didn’t stray. It was a feeling of deep desperation twisting within his gut which longed for this, a starvation, knowing that if he were consumed then at least he would be paid some sort of attention. It would be an honour. He sat stupidly in his chair, gazing, entrapped. A lamb in the beautiful jaws of the wolf.

It was too late when he realised the Commanders eyes had flickered down to glance at him, cursory and curious. Flat and observant. He didn’t even move his face, and Harry was struck with a terrifying rush of panic that he had imagined it. But no, he had looked at him, annoyed, and Harry felt as though he might simply die there on the spot from this intense, horrifying, overwhelming rush of shame. A primal feeling. He immediately moved his whole head away from him, looking straight down into his lap, subservient. He was shaking all over, sweating coldly and he had to stop a breath of utter fearful disgust escaping his shaking lips. Was he still looking at him? The hand on the desk now felt overbearing, domineering and as he looked at it, he found that the Commander had implied a vice-like grip onto the wood, his knuckles white. Harry nearly crawled out his skin at this. Oh, was he _that_ repulsive to him? He sickened himself.

Despite the slow churning of his torment, the conversation around him had never once stopped, never once acknowledge him. The whole confrontation only lasted a split second, but for Harry it repeated over and over in an endless loop of despair and pity. Trapped in the limbo of his thoughts. Sweating, and trembling at such a high frequency that his teeth clacked inside his head. He recognised the feeling from when he had ever gotten into trouble as a child, or a student, and intense bolt of energy that demanded him to flee. _Flee or be eaten, Harry._

“Nice of you to drop by, nevertheless, Commander” Stanley’s voice drifted through the heavy haze of his anguish, bringing him back into the room slowly whether he liked it or not. He awoke within himself to find that he was wet with sweat and frazzled feeling, empty feeling, like breaking from a fever. The Commander was leaving. His weight pushed off from the desk with elegance and the hand was gone, leaving behind a strange mark of perspiration, evaporating steadily. Harry stared at it, unsure of what to think, but something about it drawing him in.

Goodsir watched distractedly as Stanley followed the Commander’s shape to the exit, spouting official sounding pleasantries on the way out. Harry was alone briefly, feeling like he shouldn’t even be here at all suddenly, still frail and shaking and his heart thumping so loud he was certain everyone could hear it. Not a single word was said to him from Commander Fitzjames. Nothing. There was a strange hollow sinking feeling in his throat and it pooled into his stomach all coiled and clammy and icy. He let it sit. _Golden fruit on tall trees, Harry. Learn from Icarus, Harry._

When Stanley returned so had his usual air of irritation and officiousness. Like a drab curtain pulled across a sunny day, not that his fake officer persona was particularly _sunny_. Harry found himself unnerved by the sudden change, but he was desperate to restore some sense of normalcy, anything at _all_ of himself before the events of last night. It felt as though his very being was changing rapidly from the inside without his control, things were happening to him so fast and so obscure that he didn’t understand, and it frightened him. It frightened him a lot.


	3. Satiation

It was three O’clock in the morning, Harry could not sleep. That wasn’t a problem because it was his allotted time for the night shift in the Medical bay. It wasn’t that he couldn’t sleep that bothered him, he rarely could, but its was he couldn’t _rest_. Ever since the events of the afternoon he had been a persistent mass of fear and confusion, his nerves singing like wires. He struggled to keep still around the lamplit room, his shadow throwing itself across the walls rapidly at nauseating angles as he paced to and fro.

It was around this time last night when –

_No, Harry. Forget it._

He paced, curling and uncurling his shaking hands. What an idiot he was today. What an idiot the day before. What an utter _fool_ he is. Allowing himself to get to caught up in the approval and attention of such a high standing man like that, _letting_ himself feel special. What a mistake.

He did his very best to ignore the pulling and squirming that was persistently and consistently happening inside of him. The feeling like hooks inside his belly, pulling and tearing. The feeling had not ceased since the encounter earlier. The shame and humiliation convulsing within. So many different emotions rushing within, the utter feeling of unimportance, the feeling of guilt, and that alien feeling that he couldn’t understand. All jostling and twisting for a place inside of him.

All at once he found himself leaning against the examination bench with his hands, back towards the door. A wave of absolute despair threatening to drown him. _Let me drown, let me sink below the surface of this abominable misery and never be seen again, please let it just end!_ He was turning inside out in a million different ways with every second that passed, so deeply wounded and pitiful he felt that it was as though his whole body was swaying jarringly inside himself, like on a rough sea. Sick with self-loathing. Out of control of himself. _Oh, let it end! What did I ever do to deserve this?_

There he stayed in uncomfortable silence with himself, teeth gritted so tight that his jaw hurt. Not breathing. Silence…. emptiness. Oblivion.

“You astonish me…”

Harry whipped around. That voice! That horribly familiar purring voice. Commander Fitzjames was leaning against the entrance to the bay, all tall and hulking and shadowy. How long had been there? Harry felt his scalp prickle and tighten with a wave of fear.

He held a half empty bottle of whiskey loosely in one hand, the other leaning above his head on the doorframe.

Goodsir’s breath rushed out of him all at once, a girlish, frightened sigh, and pulled back in again to a hitch. It felt like a dream, like a nightmare, was this real? Had he fallen asleep again? All he could do was stare with eyes impossibly big and a pit in his stomach, being watched by that dark, glinting gaze. _Remember the wolf stories Harry_. He wanted to gulp but his throat was bone dry. He wanted to say something, _anything_ but he couldn’t form words with his heavy tongue. He could only wait with stiffening horror.

He didn’t need to wait long.

The shape of the Commander was approaching before he even registered and suddenly, oh too quickly, he was enveloped in hot searing warmth, the feeling of strong arms around him immediately. Up with a dizzying lurch, and then down and suddenly his back found the examination table and there he lay, crushed under the hot and heavy man all at once, almost clumsily. His breath knocked out of him with a small, surprised moan. Oh, this was too much, too good to be true, so warm and so firm and oh so _much_.

The world was spinning around him and all he could feel was the Commander’s body pressing into him, right down the centre of him, parting his shaking thighs around his waist and letting his knees fall over the edge of the bench. He was so hot and so strong, and the wool of his cream jumper seemed to radiate its own heat. He had been drinking. He smelled immediately of whiskey, the bottle which had now crashed to the floor, forgotten. It was the heady mix of his own personal musk and alcohol that attacked Harry’s senses so utterly, suffocating. He found himself unable to react to what was happening and unable to stop it even if he wanted to, something in him screaming that he didn’t want to at all.

“Oh, look at you” his hot face had found the crook of Harry’s neck and there he coarsely whispered, the sensation prickling all over Harry’s writhing body “You astound me, Mr. Goodsir. You really do.”

The words made him dizzy, as if they somehow crawled inside of his head and journeyed all the way through his body, making him rise from the table without really realising it, gasping. Oh, this was too much. His mind was blank, was he panicking? He didn’t know. Should he be scared? He wasn’t. Oh, suddenly he had never felt so right in all his life, underneath his pressing, unrelenting, whispering warmth.

“C..commander” he tried, his voice getting lost in a broad shoulder, “What are yo-“

“Shhhhhhhh, sh sh shh” Harry’s face flushed immediately, and his eyes actually fell closed at this intimate soothing. Oh, it was a delightful noise, serpentine and yet smooth and so gently deep from drink, it enwrapped his entire body, “Oh, s’okay shh now” his voice slurred.

His heart hammered in his throat but underneath this weight even that too was lost to him, just like his voice, just like his rapid breathing, all absorbed into the thick woollen shoulders of the Commander as he just held him, swaying ever so slightly. His face searing into Harry’s neck, breathing heavily. And all Harry could do was lay there, hot, and squirming, and open and vulnerable and shivering. Oh, he trembled so hard he nearly vibrated. Any despair he felt coiling within him was now rudely replaced with such a feeling of warmth and contentment and pressure that it was hard to feel anything else. There was just the smell of whiskey and hot wool. His hands found the Commander’s chest and there they clung as if he was indeed drowning after all. So, swept along and so dizzy and so utterly weightless he felt at these new sensations that he may well have been dying. What a glorious way to die.

“Mmm you didn’t really think I could ignore you huh? Ohhh I’ve not been able to stop thinking about you, Mr Goodsir, Jesus Christ, god help me, oh lord save me, but I can’t help it, oh you know I can’t,” he all but moaned silkily onto Harry’s skin, as if in some sort of prayer-like stupor, big hot hands beginning to wander from Harry’s slim waist up the sides of his ribs and back down again, over and over and over.

The whole ordeal made Harry feel as though he was on a whole new dimension, nothing but the voice in his ear, in his head, and the warm hot hands on him, their repetitive motions sending shocks of heat over him and he couldn’t help it, he couldn’t hold it: he let out a small moan at the feeling, at the _words_. Every fear he had been harbouring so quickly blown away as though by a strong gust of whiskey scented wind, and it was too good, too perfect. Too much.

He felt Fitzjames hitch in a breath next to his ear and let out a gorgeous, satisfied and rather drunken laugh low in his throat in reaction to Harry’s moan.

“Oh, is that what you want, huh? You want my hands all over you, Mr. Goodsir?” he all but panted, slurring, and pushing his head further against the sweltering skin of Harry’s neck, matting his whiskers with his own sweat.

Harry moaned again breathy in his throat; the sounds seemed to come out of him before he was even aware of them. His words were so intensely dirtying for a man of his status, of his elegance and composure, that Harry only blushed fiercely and couldn’t respond with words of his own, only pathetic noises. He wasn’t even aware he could make such noises. Every word the Commander rumbled, every tickle of breath in his ear, every gentle but firm push of his hands, they all seemed to course through his entire body, setting his very bones on fire, and making him go blind with pleasure and hunger.

“Is that what you want, hm?” he growled sloppily in his ear, all baritone and nothing more, all heat and heaviness and whiskey, “oh please, _please_ say it, is that what you want?”

Harry gasped, a shocking sound, and felt himself arch off the table as though struck by lightning. Were wolves supposed to beg when devouring their prey? This was no big bad wolf; this was a man, and he was ravenous and vulnerable, and Harry felt his bowels clench with hunger pains of his own. He huffed softly at the feeling, choking on it. The strange pain of it.

“I’ll give you anything, oh _please_ ” he was nearly sobbing from a want so great that he shook on top of him, “ _Please let me touch you.”_

The air left Harry as though from a violent strike, his whole body felt immediately too hot, flushing and blood racing in his ears. He felt like he was spinning, and it was only the clutch of his trembling fingers in the Commander’s jumper which grounded him.

Oh, this was obscene. How could this be real? How was he unaware of how much he wanted this to happen? Amidst all those feelings within him, all the confusion, there was this desperate _need_ growing in him that he didn’t recognise. A _wanting_ so great for this that it made him feel sick. Made him feel not like himself. A new and alien feeling. A starvation begging to be slaked. And it made his whole being _sing_ with trembling, dizzying warmth. Unbearable. Too much.

“I’ve seen you Mr. Goodsir” The Commander was saying, almost to himself, drunkenly and slurring, his soft whisper sending thrills down Harry’s shoulders and back, “the way you panic, the way you _worry_ , oh that pretty face of yours always so, so tense s’all the time” he pushed his face further against Harry’s cheek, “the way you looked at me today…” his breath caught and Harry breathed hard at the sound, “you look at me like I’m going to eat you, dear boy” he let out a feverish low moan and Harry’s mouth dropped open against him, breathing in his wool jumper, “oh there’s such a _HUNGER_ in you boy, oh it drives me wild, you’ve been all I can think about. I couldn’t look at you today, I tried my best to bury this but _OH that look on your sweet little face_ ” the hands on him screwed into tight fists in his waistcoat and Harry’s narrow torso momentarily lifted from the table with it, making him shiver like a mouse in a trap, “You have hypnotised me. Oh, _please let me touch you_. _Please,_ _or I feel I may expire_.” He rushed on slurred and feverishly, almost inaudible against his ear, low and vibrating, “Oh, _please_ , oh do you want me to touch you? yes? You want my hands all over you? Ohhh yes, open you up like your pretty little box over there, mmm oh is that what you want that huh? _Please._ ”

Harry only just now realised the way he was shaking, responding to these words of temptation, he had his face pressed into the Commander’s trembling, hot chest, his open mouth emitting a strange soft sobbing moan of his own, engulfed in the heat and darkness of the wool and the musk and the growling, uttering the word:

_Yes_

Softly, almost imperceptibly, Like a prayer. Face flushing, quickly hot and damp beneath his clothes but feeling safe anonymity in the shadow of Fitzjames’ hot body. A sacrificial lamb at the altar. A rabbit in his hidey-hole. But this prey was utterly and completely willing, a primal frenzy. _Oh, Mr Wolf, how big your hands are. OH! Mr. Wolf how hot you are, how you GROWL Mr. Wolf, oh Mr. Wolf DEVOUR ME. SWALLOW ME WHOLE._

A swooning keening sound erupted from him as the Commander, panting feverishly and spurred on by his sweet reactions, was planting hot kisses to the tender flesh of his throat, no doubt feeling how the tendons there thudded with blood. Harry’s head fell back with a clonk but the woozy knock only increased this feeling of absolute rapture that was spreading over his body like white-hot prickling flames.

_Oh Mr. Wolf, how soft your jaws are on my throat._

His hands fell uselessly at his sides, digging into the soft wood of the examination table. His thighs opening themselves under the Commander, blooming for him, as gorgeous waves of delight washed over him in entirety, pooling in his loins with buzzing enthusiasm that made his eyes roll back. The feeling of Fitzjames’ heavy stomach and hips pressing into him there, and how his thick waist spread his legs, was deliciously, sinfully unbearable. All he could do was lay still and breath rapidly.

He had never felt like this before, he was sure he was dying, like the ecstasy of saints before they embrace their god, but _oh_ this was no holy act, and he was _no_ saint. He could feel his entire frame shaking, only grounded by the warmth of Fitzjames’ sturdy body, his hands as they came to squeeze his waist comfortingly,

“Shhh sh sh” came the soothing tone in his ear, sending lightning down his spine, arching him slightly again, twinging in the small of his back ticklishly “Oh there, there shh” his hands slipped slowly down and down, and Harry let out a shaky breath of anticipation. A small breath of exhilarating alarm as if he were afraid of what he had agreed to, suddenly frightened he would not be able to survive it, so intense were the sensations. Heat rushing so fiercely to his head he thought he may faint. He let out a dizzy laugh, a gasp, another little laugh. Was he going mad? Was he hysterical? So overwhelmed by such small a movement on him.

Then those warm hands found either thigh, almost covering them entirely and his body jerked into the blunt heat above him on its own accord, as if that gentle touch had given him a physical shock, and he cried out, muffled by a woollen shoulder.

The Commander breathed unevenly against his throat, his body seemed to rise a few degrees hotter on top of him,

“Yeah? Oh s’that good?” he slurred around his own raspy moan as he felt Harry nod blindly and Harry moaned at it too, the sound so delightfully soft and unlike a Commander. Yes, this was just a man.

The hands on him, searing, slowly smoothed up and down, gently and carefully, just like he had seen him do with his medical chest, a motion that he so often implemented on himself as a soother now suddenly hot with intent and arousal it nearly choked him. Something so familiar becoming so blasphemous and he squirmed and writhed and found himself gasping and mewling, digging his nails into the wood until his fingers were numb, not knowing what else to do.

“My god…” Fitzjames breathed, another moan escaping his chest as Harry arched at the sound, “Oh look at you…look at youuu” Fitzjames growled wantonly against his skin and uttered a small laugh in disbelief, “Such a beautiful little thing, aren’t you?” he sighed against his skin.

The repetition of the words he had said on their first meeting, about the medicine chest, wasn’t lost on Harry and somewhere in the hazy depths of his mind, now flooded with sensation and heat, he wondered if perhaps the Commander had secretly directed that statement to him all along. The thought flashed, glimmered and was lost again as Fitzjames’ large, hot hands began to rub slow circles on his shaking thighs, his thumbs edging into the inner thigh with every stroke.

Harry gasped so completely he was worried he would suffocate, he was absolutely unable to know how to react to such an onslaught of sensations, even from the smallest of things, so intimate and delicate and _careful_ was the touch and how completely it seemed to fulfil him almost immediately, that he had no room except to lay there and find an outlet through his voice alone, his body now becoming so heavy and useless and preoccupied with heat and pleasure.

“Oh how you _shiver_ , my dear” Fitzjames panted into his neck, “mm do I frighten you? Don’t be afraid, shhh” the scent of whiskey intoxicating, and he let out a deep purr of gratification that vibrated straight through Harry’s skull and down, down to his prick, fluttering in his stomach as it passed.

He suddenly found his hands coming to clasp at the rough, hot wool of the Commander’s broad shoulders, hanging on for dear life, and immobilised by the sudden jolt of heat just where he needed it the most.

“Oh, my, my shhh shh” he issued a drunken low laugh, a drunken low moan, and the weight on top of Harry pressed more intense, and _oh LORD_ had he ground down onto him like that on purpose? Harry couldn’t stop but yelp a breathless shout at the sudden friction and heat from the Commanders firm stomach onto his prick, which jumped in shameful approval against his trousers,

“Oh is that what you wanted? Is that good, huh? Oh, _look at you_ already, I haven’t even touched you properly.”

Harry felt his face rush with heat and shame despite himself, and he felt himself tense under the Commander, suddenly wanting to coil away from him. Humiliation and shame. This was obscene, this was too much. How is this happening to him? With _this_ man of all people. Oh, perhaps he would be eaten after all, tempted enticed and then stripped bare and eaten, leaving only a sad empty carcass of himself. And it’s his fault for being gullible to it, for letting himself be tricked. For relishing in this warmth, and weight, and _OH_ those hands are so _delightfully gentle_ and _soft,_ and they are _smoothing_ up his trembling stomach, oh how they feel so _heated_ and _strong_ along his ribcage, and _oh_ they are on his throat. He froze, sweating, suddenly panting shallowly without registering it, and made to pry his eyes open slowly, feeling drunk.

As if in some dizzying dream, he could see the roofing of the med bay, all orange and warm, slightly obscured by a woollen shoulder, strands of dark hair spilling over his face and he realised it was the Commanders. He saw his own relatively smaller hands curled in the wool of this shoulder, the knuckles white and as he looked the hand didn’t _feel_ like it belonged to him at all, so overbright and buzzing with woozy sensation was his body that his fingers felt numb and tingly.

He could feel the hot, shaking fingers of the Commander nestled at his throat, out of sight to him, trapped between their bodies, and he was pulling at Harry’s necktie feverishly, panting in his ear on his left side, and all he could do was lay and tremble and breathe the best he could. His throat was dry with anticipation. His thighs felt weak and like liquid, warmth spread all along their inside where the Commander was parting them with his body, and the warmth centred perfectly, sweetly agonising, in his loins with delightful pressure where the Commander’s hot waist bent from the hip onto him. Open and vulnerable to the heat, an organism pressed under the glass slide of his microscope.

Without thinking he lifted his thighs and encircled that waist, feeling more secure and squeezing in an effort to stop the shaking, grounding himself. It was a response which came naturally to Harry, to want to squeeze this man close to him, to attach himself onto this warmth, to feel that it was real, that _he_ was real. Oh, and he was thrillingly real, so solid and hot and breathing and he squeezed tighter, relishing in the sweet ache of his legs as they strained against him.

The moan Fitzjames issued made his eyes fall closed again, so close was he to his ear that the noise shot down his spine, and he slipped away again into the sensation, back into a drunken haze. The noise travelled down him, into his pelvis, letting his hips curl up feverishly into the dull heat above him, resulting in a delicious burst of friction and white-hot light behind his eyes, his mouth dropping open with a soft noise in it. Fitzjames wantonly moaned, almost frenzied by this little reaction,

“Oh, s’okay that’s right, I’ve got you.” His mission with his necktie forgotten momentarily as he desperately placed a hot kiss to the underside of Harry’s jaw, the soft vulnerable flesh there pulsing rapidly like a small, frightened animal, “Oh yes s’okay that’s it, that’s it, you can do that if you want, oh _please_ do that again” he nearly sobbed with the indecisiveness, warred with it, but was so plainly open with his demands that Harry could have laughed, instead he keened and felt his hips press tentatively upwards again, shocking at the intensely heated reaction which clawed from Fitzjames’ alcohol scratched throat.

Such a small movement and Harry had seemingly incapacitated this heavy man on top of him, short circuited him, and he just buried himself as far into his neck as was possible, cooing and fussing him delicately, encouraging him, but it sounded more and more like a private, slurred, prayer than intelligible words.

If there was ever anything predatory and powerful Harry feared from this man, it was slowly evaporating as he realised, _relished_ , that the Commander was not as haughty and untouchable as he thought. Not made of gold, like he thought. Oh, he could sink his teeth into this man with no resistance. There he laid heavy on him and yet debilitated by the softest of reciprocations; a soft underbelly exposed as he sweetly moaned for him.

“Oh, Mr. Goodsir, you will drive me mad, stark and raving, oh you would do that to me, Wouldn’t you?” His breath was hot and quick “Oh god! You will undo me!” he was growling low and feverishly, shaking mightily, crashing his head onto the table in his fervour with a sickening thud and Harry found his own shaking, soft, fingers leap to the nape of his hot neck, hoping to soften him, a little alarmed. Suddenly feeling like he had to intervene.

The Commander gasped and twisted up into his touch, his back arched like a great cat, ferocities melting away under it. His face finally appearing before Harry as he tipped back to welcome his fingers as they curled into the slightly dampened hair.

A swooning rush of heat bolted through Harry when he at last could lay eyes on that face, flushed and shining with light sweat, eyes closed, the lashes sparkling with tearful moisture, his mouth parted, eyebrows pulled up and together in intense pleasure; lost in the ministrations of Harry’s hand in his hair. His breath stuttered shallowly, but his body was motionless, as if fearing that moving would make this all vanish. It was a face that was far from the portrait of a Navy Captain, more like a painting of a harlot.

Harry felt an immediate convulsion of deep, unrelenting _hunger_ at the sight.

The same face he had foolishly gawped at today, who had seemed to him impenetrably like marble, and cold to match, now glowing and open in front of him. He found himself breathing heavily, sighing around a moan, as he continued to stare, awe-struck. Hypnotised. Fingers moving small circles at the base of his neck, gently and calmly as though he were performing surgical duties. Gazing mesmerised at the man’s completely unmasked expression.

And oh, how Fitzjames seemed to labour with his emotions, struggling to keep his passions from frenzying, his hands screwing up tight on Harry’s chest, knuckles white and his whole frame shaking with fervour.

He looked tormented with sensation, entrapped by it, and it was the most gorgeous sight Harry had ever laid eyes upon. Much more enthralling than any painting or bust or golden apple, or even any beautiful sea fauna he had studied.

Sudden clarity bloomed within Harry and he swiftly _knew_ that this man had been hounded by this just as much as he. This man, who looked so close to breaking from the ferocity of his desire that tears settled in his lashes, had also been suffering in the exact same way as Harry had, perhaps even more so. Oh, the idea of it made him breathless and he just _gazed_ at the state of this man. The unbridled lust. The way he trembled under Harry’s small soft hands, the way he looked so utterly wavering and unstable as though he could evaporate or dissolve into a puddle at any given moment, held together tightly by the thinnest of threads that Harry was slowly undoing.

He gazed at him, felt the heat radiating from him, heard his shallow breathing, saw the sweat and tears mixed on his face, and he thought _My god, what have I done to this man?_ And starvation twisted inside of him.

He found himself placing a soft, tentative kiss onto those lips, perhaps in an apology of this sudden deep understanding. His heart in his throat as he did so, feeling awfully like he was baiting a wild animal.

Then all at once Harry found himself devoured as Fitzjames kissed him, hot and wet and perfect and tasting of whiskey. The force of the Commander’s response was that of a man dying of thirst, a man eager for a meal, a wolf who had tasted blood. An assault on the senses and it made Harry dizzy and giddy and he swooned a moan into his mouth, his head thumped against the table once again, sending delicious stars rocketing into his eyes. Did the commander growl into his mouth? He was sure of it, in the frenzy of his desires and _oh_ what a _delightful_ sensation, how utterly primal and how debauched. Finally, there was a fulfilment to the threats of being swallowed by the big bad wolf, and Harry could have sobbed with the irony at how much he wanted this, _needed_ this perhaps from the very moment the idea had entered his head disguised as a fear. A sheep in wolf’s clothing. _Remember the wolf stories, Harry?_ He didn’t have to, he was part of one, and now he suddenly understood the premise. _Devour me, devour me, devour me!_ And he did, as though he could read his mind after all, his tongue pushing into his mouth just the right amount to make Harry moan and feel heady, his body suddenly forgotten, and it was just their mouths as though in a whole new dimension.

Nothing but this and the hammering of Harry’s heart in his ears, in his temples, in this throat.The two of them consuming one another.

Fitzjames pulled away for breath,

“Oh, Mr. Goodsir what are you doing to me? Look at me,” the voice was cracked and so pierced with desire that it made Harry shiver and lick his lips, and he looked, met with those dark, heavy lidded eyes, his face heated and achingly open,“ Look at what you’ve done to me,” he was whispering deadly low, his whole face hot and his eyes glassy. His breath quickened and Harry mirrored it.

Suddenly Harry knew what he meant, and he felt, with a rush of blood to his face, the Commander press his hips to the crease of his thigh and groin, letting out a hot moan as he did so, and Harry felt his erection plain and simple. Dizziness swept him and he heard himself gasp embarrassingly loud, chasing it with a heady little moaning laugh, his head finding the searing heat of the commander’s shoulder again with a little,

“ _Oh_ ”

“Oh you feel that? Huh? You think that’s funny hm?” he was purring deep into his ear, a smile of his own quirking his lips, before they fell open into a gorgeous moan as he ground down again “mm that’s what you do to me Mr. Goodsir, you’ve enraptured me.” All heated passion and coarse whispering and Harry felt his head fall back in response, panting, and unable to stop his own hips stirring in a shameful reply, making them both moan,

“Oh Mr. Goodsir you really do astonish me” Fitzjames breathed hotly, and Harry whined hoarsely with desire, feeling himself blush with the sound, once again overcome with the smell of hot wool, whiskey and the heavy musky pressure of the Commander, once again lost in the warmth of his body so effortlessly covering ever inch of him, holding him open, a fortress begging to be stormed and possessed. like his sketches of a cadavers, spread open and exposed. Like pinned butterflies. A microscopic being under a glass slide. A lamb for the slaughter.

“But no,” Fitzjames was muttering almost to himself, and his weight returned to pressing himself evenly along the centre of Harry’s body, hardness no longer interacting with him. Harry swallowed thickly, that microscope feeling returning, “oh not yet, not yet. ” He trembled violently and Harry gasped again as he felt those hot heavy fingers return to his necktie where they had previously been forgotten. Frenzied motions. Fitzjames panting shamelessly against his neck,

“ _Oh_ I need to see you, _bare yourself to me_! I need as much of you as you can give me, can you give me that much? Can I open you? _Please_ _oh_ – help me! my fingers shake from my desires! _OH_ you torment me so!”

Harry found himself untying his own necktie and unbuttoning his waistcoat without even realising he was doing it, his hands shaking so violently next to the Commander’s own as he helped, brushing against the warmth of his woollen jumper on top of him, scratching his knuckles. It took a two-man effort but then he was undone, waistcoat spread either side of him as though flayed. Flashes of open cadavers, of sacrificial lambs. Revealed. Exposed by his own surgical hands. His teeth clacked with the intensity of his shaking and all he could do was lay there, hopelessly open and panting and sweating. Feeling dizzy with that familiar feeling of _oh no what if I can’t handle this?_

Fitzjames had reared up an inch and was suddenly so still above him. So silent. Barely breathing. Harry’s eyes flew open as best as he could manage with how heavy they had become and was met with a picture which made his stomach squeeze and his breath catch with a moan of anxiety.

The Commander was looking down at him, casting those deep dark eyes over his clothed body, picking out the shape of him through his shirt. And oh, he looked _famished_.

His eyes glinted with the orange lamplight, sweat shining on his skin and saliva glistening on his lips. He looked like a man ready to commit a heinous crime, and Harry supposed that’s what this was.

He was monstrous with desire.

All Harry could manage to do was expose his underbelly with frightened anticipation curling and squirming inside him. Silent apart from their breathing. The wolf licked his lips.

Harry felt a small moan leave him as Fitzjames’ hands slowly, ever so gently, smoothed along the planes of his chest, watching his own movements with attentive gaze of a man performing a most important task. Drinking him in using both his eyes and his hands.

“You’re so hot, my dear,” he issued, low and purring and Harry arched at the sound, “how your little heart does beat, like a caged bird _oh I can feel it!_ ”

He gasped obscenely and then his face came crashing down onto Harry’s sternum, burning his skin through the thin calico he wore by how hot he ran, pushing the air out of him with a hiccup, “ _OH!_ I can _hear_ it!”

Goodsir’s breath stuttered out of him and he flushed as the Commander proceeded to press his face against his bosom, his head heavy and pushing into him fiercely and he was issuing sobbing moans,

“ _OH_ let me in, _please oh_ I need to know how to capture this heart of yours! Oh, I can hear it but it’s _so far away_! You have _bewitched_ me so! _I need to be inside there and live within you_! _Oh_ , my body cries out for it, your sweet, frightened heartbeat does nothing but _encourage_ me _oh what’s wrong with me,_ my god, _oh lord_!”

It was obscene. Stronger than obscene, it was improper. And oh, how Harry found himself lost within those words, lost within that heated and insane passion which spilled onto his chest in heated, damp waves. His whole body set alight by the vulgarities and how the Commander had been driven so tormentingly to distraction by him made his mouth drop open and his curls stick to his forehead with sweat and oh if this carried on, he may also lose his mind. His fingernails dug into wool of the Commander’s shoulders. Holding on for dear life.

Those large hands came to squeeze him roughly at his ribs and he gasped in swooning delightful anguish, arching up into Fitzjames’ face as he burrowed his way to the soft flesh beneath his shirt, puffing hot breath over his bare skin. Harry cried out shamefully and froze. A deer in the lamplights of an oncoming train.

“Oh, is this what you want? You want my mouth on you Mr. Goodsir? You want me to devour you like the beast you think I am? The way you look at me like you just _want_ to be consumed _OH!_ Is that what you need? Say it, _tell me, please say it!_ ”

But Harry couldn’t say anything because he had already began to open his mouth on him, hot and warm, and wetting the soft hairs on his chest. It was all Harry could do to let his hands fly to the Commander’s hair, shaking.

His whole body seemed to trap Fitzjames to him, squeezing his thighs around him and grasping at his scalp so that he moaned delightfully against him, all hot and pressing.

“Yes? Is that what you wanted? Oh, hold me tight.” he whispered against his skin, his mouth finding his sharp collarbones and depositing hot kisses there softly.

His stubble scratched Goodsir’s delicate skin wonderfully where it had begun to peak out through the smoothness of his recent shave. His hair fell against Harry and sent ticklish shivers over him, tingling and light. Harry arched and sighed again, feeling as though he could faint. His pulse thudding so loudly and heavily in his throat underneath these jaws. The throbbing of his erection pressed firmly to the seam of his trousers and against the dark warmth of the Commander’s stomach. Each time he talked or moaned or even _breathed_ there was a delicious vibration sent right across the place where his body laid flat against Harry, including the heat in his prick. Harry just squirmed and writhed under him, feeling hopelessly, helplessly, deliciously trapped by unrelenting warmth and pressure no matter what he did.

“Ohhh that’s right, that’s it, oh _look at you,_ huh?”

His hands had begun to wander again while his mouth still worked, teeth becoming involved at some point and it made Harry keen sharply. Wolfish in nature was he indeed. Those hot, warm hands, so gentle and firm, slid to where Harry’s shirt ducked underneath his trousers and with a rough, rude passion all at once pulled the material free, sending a shock of cool air underneath and Harry moaned, knuckles white in Fitzjames’ hair.

“Shhh sh sh it’s okay” he soothed, voice like hot honey and Harry felt sticky with it.

So preoccupied with how that voice and mouth were sending warmth unfolding all over him, spreading from his shoulder blades all the way down to his knees, that he jumped and arched and cried out as though electrified when he felt the Commander’s hands sneak under his shirt, hot skin on hot skin.

“Ohhhh shhhh sh sh shh is that good? You like my hands on you?” the Commander let out a rush of a moan himself and it went straight to Harry’s prick again,

“Oh you’re so soft, hm? You tremble under my hands, oh how delightful, have you been _aching_ for this? Did you see my hand on your desk today? Did you imagine it was under your clothes huh? _OH!_ I bet you did, I know this is what you wanted the entire time.”

He was rasping and breathing heavy and Harry’s head was swimming at being known so easily, laid bare so easily, as those hands moved over his skin soothingly, “I know you were watching me unpack that little box of yours, I could feel your sweet eyes on my hands and I _knew you longed for this._ ”

Harry was panting, lost in these lusciously indecent words, in these assumptions that he dirtily knew were all so ashamedly true and that made it twice the effort to not just moan lasciviously at having been _discovered_.

Everything was becoming over-bright, overwhelmingly hot and intense, and the feeling of the Commander’s hands reaching his breast, fingers pressed his ribs, his thumbs ran over erect nipples, and he was arching and groaning low in his throat as though in deep pain. But it wasn’t pain, it was overwhelming sensation all at once and it was hot and unbearably close, but it wasn’t pain. It was need, it was hot desire, and it was _hunger pangs_ so deep in his belly that he grimaced and felt himself sweat down his neck. It was a want so tremendously big that it swallowed him, and he faintly wondered how tormenting it was for the Commander if his desire was greater than this, stronger than this. It was pressure so suffocating in his loins that he found himself rutting shamefully against the Commander’s belly like a pathetic animal on its back, mewling and gasping at all these sensations at once, at the strange way they took over him. His brain and body working on two different planes.

It was so strong all at once that he hadn’t realised his eyes had been squeezing out hot tears of frustration and passion.

Lost in his spinning fervour, he heard the Commander’s breath hitching against him and laughing drunkenly in a way that made him feel gelatinous,

“Shhh, that’s it, you’re okay” he responded by pushing his hot body down into the centre of Goodsir’s thighs and Harry threw his head back and moaned so loud it echoed in the room, “Oh is that good? Is that it? there?” he did it again. And again. And _oh_ Harry was going to sob from it, the inside of his trousers slick with his precum already providing a slippery resistance.

“Is that good?”

“ _Yes!!”_ he sobbed.

“Yeah?”

“ _YES!”_

“Ohhh shhh sh sh good lad, is that what you needed? Hm? This? Is that it?”

“ _y e s”_

He continued to slide against him with his firm stomach, hands sweating against Harry’s skin where he held him by his narrow waist. Harry was shaking harder than ever before, arching with every press to his loins, heat suffocating. Tears dropping into his hairline, his chest constricting as though sobbing but it was a buttery warm feeling rather than cold and melancholy. His hands buzzing and light in the Commander’s hair where his head lay, panting against his neck, whispering to him: ‘ _oh it’s okay, s’okay, good boy, is that it? shh I’ve got you, is that good? Oh good, oh it’s okay-_ ’ and the onslaught continued until Harry could feel the warmth slinking in his belly becoming hotter and heavier like heated rocks being pressed into his flesh there. Until he could barely breath but to moan wantonly.

Hot hands moved from his waist, leaving coolness there from sweat, and Harry nearly swallowed his tongue when he felt the heat snaking down to rest just over the area where he longed the most. Barely touching, just hovering, but the heat was immense. They both froze like that. Harry was panting and his vision thudding, blurring, in his eyes, his whole head swimming as though with drink. And he waited.

Fitzjames was looking at him now, those dark, endless eyes pooled with such a desire and such a hunger that Harry just panted into his face, aware of every detail of that expression in heated clarity.

Slowly, carefully, gently, the commander’s hand moved to undo the fastening on Harry’s trousers, he felt his swollen prick stir in anticipation and he swallowed dryly. His mouth lacking moisture quickly, his heart pounding in his chest, almost sickening from want.

Fitzjames just watched his face and breathed steadily, the steadiest his breath had been the entire time. No words fell from those parted lips. He swallowed, his throat clicking. And his fingers continued to move, oh so slowly, so elegantly. His other hand had come to rest on Harry’s thigh, and he felt it burning into him.

And then he felt himself in the Commander’s hand, and it was so intense and shocking and delightful all at once that his whole body convulsed so hard that he nearly headbutted Fitzjames, hanging in this contracted position, his eyes rolled back under heavy eyelids, his face froze in a depraved ‘O’, drawing in a shallow gasp, letting out a heady moan, and then he crashed back to the table with a clonk. Lost. Oblivion. Barely breathing, face so flushed it felt puffy and hot.

“Jesus Christ…” Fitzjames breathed, his hand hot around Harry’s length and he pulsed, “You are gorgeous.”

He sounded bewildered, he sounded on the edge of breaking point, but Harry couldn’t comprehend it because he was so lost in the intensity of his pleasure just at one simple touch from this man that he felt like he was slipping through the wood of the table, down into the floor, swallowed into darkness miles beneath. His hands grasped at the wool of Fitzjames’ heavy shoulders to stable himself from slipping away entirely.

“ _Please.”_

Was all he could manage, sounding weak and lost and muffled into the Commander’s space. He was sure he had never wanted anything more, that all at once the deep hunger in his belly had pushed down so entirely into his prick and it felt oversensitive with _need_ just from the hand gently encasing it. Unmoving. He heard Fitzjames breathing hard above him but still he didn’t move. He felt like he could go insane from this alone. Driven mad with desire.

“ _P l e a s e”_ he issued again, voice achingly soft and quiet and oh it was more of a sob than a request. He felt entirely vulnerable, entirely exposed, at the mercy of this man, his very bones shaking within him. The Commander panted above him, hot and heavy.

And then he twisted his hand and Harry shrieked with pleasure, embarrassed himself with the sound. He heard Fitzjames laugh silkily and he moaned at it, writhed with it as it washed over him.

“Look at me.”

And he did. The face he saw was one stricken with heat and pleasure, his eyelids open just enough to see Harry through, his mouth parted, and eyebrows drawn up in sympathy of Harry’s pleasure. And he watched with those dark eyes, and then he moved his hand consistently along his length.

Harry struggled to keep his eyes open, but he managed it. He moaned wantonly, he writhed and he twisted and he arched and bucked and became so tense that he feared he would cut the Commander in half with his legs, hands screwed so tightly in his hair, but Fitzjames moved with his twists and pulls. He was strong as a rock to the fierce crashing waves of Harry’s pleasure against him.

“Oh, is that good? Is that what you needed? Did you _long_ for this?” his face drawn mere centimetres away from Harry’s own as he watched the pleasure flood him, twisting his warm, firm hand keenly.

Harry couldn’t take it, feeling caressed by both his voice and his hand at the same time, feeling it in his skull and his prick simultaneously. His head fell back again, and he cried with sensation, shivering with want, with tension.

“Shhh sh shh that’s okay, I’ve got you, I’ve got you. ”

The Commander talked so close to his face that his lips brushed him with every word, but all Harry could do was moan and sob and twitch. Even if he wanted to kiss Fitzjames, which he did, he wouldn’t be able to. He felt drunk and dizzy and incorporeal.

“Is this what you wanted? Like this” _oh_ he twisted his hand so delightfully and Harry whined coarsely in his throat, sounding wrecked. “Is that good huh? Ohhh I bet that’s just what you needed? You like how I touch you huh? Oh, _look_ at you!” he let go a giddy moan against Harry’s mouth and Harry met it with one of his own feverishly,

“Oh, I could _eat you whole_.”

A bright flash of light, a sickening swoop in his bowels and Harry realised he was descending into reaching his crisis, the sudden unbridled feeling of it so utterly building and building unrelenting sent brief panic through him and he issued several short, confused noises from his mouth, eyes flying open straight into those of Fitzjames as he began to tense and heat began to crash down onto him with every stroke of his hand.

“Oh, oh, oh, there you go, ohhh shhh it’s okay oh I’ve got you, let it happen, s’okay”

Fitzjames’ voice rasped, cloaking him in sweetness and warmth and suddenly Harry felt himself slip away, clasping at hot woollen shoulders, then broad chest, and then strong arms, feeling the muscles in the right one move as the Commander continued to issue strong, curling strokes to Harry’s prick and then _bang_ he was gone, lost to his crisis with a breathy yelp.

He arched so entirely from the table that he vaguely heard Fitzjames gasp, and it was like his entire body heat suddenly zeroed in on his cock and he felt it twitch and pulse in the Commander’s strong hand, spilling it’s seed with excitement and reckless abandon. He stopped breathing and suddenly convulsed so hard with his climax that he nearly lifted Fitzjames off the table by his waist, hearing him laugh and gasp giddily somewhere.

“Oh I’ve got you, _I’ve got you_ , oh my _dear,_ oh my _good lad_ , that’s it, _that’s it!”_ he was growling into Harry’s ear and harry finally had enough breath in him to gasp again, shaking entirely and wet with sweat.

Crashing back to himself and issuing a strange, strangled noise from the sheer intensity of his entire experience, panting. Tightly wound around the man above him.

Fitzjames stayed still, letting him breath, panting himself from the shared excitement. Harry had never felt more at total peace in his entire life, he thought. Utterly weightless and boneless, his legs shaking around the Commander.

“shhhh, sh shhh ohh s’okay” he slurred, hot and comforting on top of him.

“ _Jesus_ ” Harry sighed, all the tension letting go at once and he suddenly dropped his limbs, feeling aching and jellylike.

For a while he just gazed up at Fitzjames without truly seeing him, but knowing he was there regardless.

When his eyes focused, he swooned with renewed heat and awed horror to see that the Commander was cleaning his seed from those long fingers of his, eyes closed and panting around the taste shamefully. He felt himself flush entirely and his eyes grew impossibly big at the picture, oh how debauched it was!

Fitzjames purred a sound quietly to himself and Harry moaned too, unable to look away. Staring as he was physically consumed by this man. This wolf. 

Oh, how he had been enticed and _devoured_ after all. _One fluid and satisfying motion._

The commander came back to himself and opened those wolfish eyes with such an intense starvation in them that Harry could have recoiled, suddenly dawning on him that he still remained in a state of fierce want.

“Forgive me” he barely whispered, voice cracked with desire and Harry breathed hard, “I feel like a starved man when in your presence,” he looked utterly lost and broken within his own tormented need, lowering his hand, licked clean, and just gazing at Harry as though he would die right there from the sight of him,

“Oh how you came _so undone_ for me, how you still _shiver_ beneath me, _how beautiful you look_.”

That hunger was growing, infecting his face and Harry looked up in a heady mix of fear and delight, watching it.

Without thinking, he pulled the man into him for a searing kiss, hot and slow and ravenous. He tasted whiskey and now hints of his own release on his tongue and it made him moan. The Commander moaned too, shaking so intensely and so hot he burned.

Soft underbelly became exposed again and Harry took his chances, sliding a knee into the scorching heat of the Commander’s groin, feeling him immediately tense, jerk and delightfully growl into his mouth. A few graceful slides of his shin against the hardness under his trousers and the Commander was breaking the kiss, whining and gasping against his mouth, panting and losing himself. Swooning and slurring his own little prayer that Harry could only barely make out,

“ _OH_ my _sweet_ oh my _DEAR_ oh _god_ , _OH_ how you _delight_ me, how you set me _aflame_ how you- _OH!_ _How can this ever be wrong? How can it be wrong if it_ _feels this good_ \- _oh..OH_ ”

His breath stuttered above him, Harry watched heatedly as the Commander’s mouth pulled open, but no sound issued from it, delightful silent agony etching his face. His eyes briefly searched Goodsir’s as though in a desperate plea for help. He managed one small ‘ _oh’_ from the depths of his throat before it constricted entirely, and he climaxed. Harry felt with relish as his cock stirred against his leg and dampness crept in a puddle to meet it. His mouth pressed onto Harry's as delicate moans tumbled from him with every full body shock and contraction. Such soft, pitiful sounds. Utterly helpless in the world of his orgasm. A wolf momentarily transformed back into a man. 

Harry devoured the sight of him. 

And then the Commander fell on him, crushing him and growled in his ear with satisfaction and desire. Harry gasped and laughed headily and felt a sudden, pulling urge to wrap his arms around this man, to envelop him, to try and incorporate him somehow into his very being. And he tried to, his arms shaky around his shoulders and for some reason he wanted to cry, he didn’t know why.

The Commander shook so violently in his arms, utterly incapacitated from his release and so starkly human and real and Harry smiled so intensely that tears streaked his cheeks silently.

And so, sweet and sound, he lay between the paws of the tender wolf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent way too long on this but I hope it's worth it.  
> Sorry for being rubbish at spacial awareness and not knowing what the medical bay looks like... All that matters is that theres a sexy table, right??? 
> 
> Please leave kudos and a comment if you enjoyed! It would really mean THE WORLD.


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